Cities: Skylines Modding Interview with CO’s Damien Morello

Mods are proving massively popular and Damien Morello discusses creating the game with modding in mind.

We’ve all installed numerous mods since the game launched and we’re all grateful that Paradox and Colossal Order created a game which allows the community to be creative. In a new interview on Gamasutra, CO’s Damien Morello explains how modding was part of the plan for release. He comments:

“The systems we built were first designed without considering the modding scene. They were built purely to be as robust as possible, so we could build on them in the future. As there’s so much more that can be done with the game, we wanted base systems that were reliable and allowed us to build on them in the future.” What this meant, though, was that those very systems that made development easier also enabled the modding scene to slot their creations into the game seamlessly and with the minimum of disruption to the experience.”

It’s also interesting to read in the interview that Morello and the team were surprised that players had hacked access to systems they thought would take them a month. Modders are smart and persistent gamers and it never takes long to gain access to stuff that’s not easily accessible.

The interview also comments on the new paid mod system that’s appeared on Steam and Morello adds:

“I don’t see any problems with that, but I don’t know how the community would react if everyone started doing the same. I’m not sure if modding would be as successful if everything had to be paid for, even if it was a very small amount. We’ll see in the future where it goes. I think the core idea is not bad, to ask for a little money if the quality is really good.”

It sounds like Paradox and CO are going to see how it works out for Skyrim and possibly other games before making any decisions on whether Cities: Skylines should allow paid mods in the Steam Workshop.